02 August 2027 – Edwards Air Force Base, Kern County, California

“How’s the ankle?” Evan Porter asked as he walked from the parking lot to the schoolhouse.

“It hurts, Bart,” Sabrina grumbled. “That’s why I’m limping …”

“How soon until you’re back in the cockpit?”

“Another week. I’m just glad to be back on duty. A week of sitting in the house listening to jets take off when I couldn’t join in was maddening!”

“And being here while you’re not allowed in the aircraft is better?”

“At least I’ll feel like I’m contributing.”

They walked over to the list of the week’s groupings on the bulletin board near their primary classroom.

“You sure about that?” Evan asked as he nodded at the list.

“Has someone figured out why she doesn’t like me?”

“She doesn’t like anybody, Sabrina. She won’t like you the most today because you’re now part of ‘her’ team,” Harper Dominguez said as he walked over. “We’ve all had our turn on that merry-go-round! Don’t know how you’ve avoided her this long.”

“Gee, thanks, Harpo. Lach, would you mind giving him a wedgie or something?”

“Can I just throw something at him? I’d have to get his flight suit off before I give him a wedgie …”

“Someone want to tell me how she’s made it this far into the course when she treats people the way she does?” another of their classmates asked.

“Because she’s almost as brilliant an engineer as you are, Evie …” Reese Jones replied to Evelyn Kaur. “She wants to be the best, but you already are.”

“Thanks, Stitch.”

Stitch Jones was right. Eve Kaur was a brilliant, as in ‘higher than 4.0 GPA in her undergrad and graduate courses’ brilliant. While Johanna Salazar was almost as brilliant academically, the major difference between them was that Eve could interact with others like a regular person.

Salazar’s ability to solve technical problems was likely the only reason she was still at TPS. No one enjoyed working with her because she treated you like an inferior species, regardless of your accomplishments. TPS accepted people based on their own merits, and everyone had their own reasons for being here.

Sabrina’s classmates might not be the best pilots, navigators, or engineers around, but they were within the top five percent of people in their fields. They also solved problems, and they made plans. Not everyone did.

Johanna Salazar entered the building, and everyone around the board slipped into the classroom before she walked over. Sabrina reluctantly sat at the desk on the assignment list. There she greeted the other members of the group, and pointedly ignored Salazar as she walked up. Salazar tossed papers onto the table.

“Here are the assignments for today,” she said in a haughty voice, which was her usual tone.

Sabrina waved off the rest of the team as they each reached for a page. With a disdainful look, she picked one up, read it, and then tossed it back onto the table.

“Nope. Not happening.” Salazar glared at Sabrina. “Where’d you get this list? From the cadre, or did you make it up yourself?”

More silence.

“That’s what I thought,” Sabrina snapped. “I’m not playing your games, Salazar. If you want to be part of a team, we’ll figure it out. If you’re telling us what to do, the answer is ‘fuck you!’”

“Don’t start with me, Knox! The military answers to civilians!“

“Get bent, bitch!” Sabrina growled in response. “You’re on a military base taking a class run by the military. Franco and Joey have more experience than all of us combined! Who cares if they don’t have some vaunted degree? They get the job done, they ask the right questions when something isn’t clear, and they keep newbies like us out of trouble!

“And where do you come off with this high-and-mighty attitude? What makes you think you’re better than us? I’ve got a master’s in aerospace engineering and my Air Force pilot’s wings. I’m IFR and multi-engine rated with the FAA. Happily married. Despite all that, I treat others like human beings, unlike you. And I’m a second-degree black belt, so if you start something I’m gonna end it!“

“That’s IT!“ Salazar screeched. “I’m going to talk to the cadre about this!”

“Go ahead,” Sabrina answered with a shrug. When Salazar reached for the pile of job assignments, Sabrina slapped her hand down on them. “Nope. These stay here so you can’t get rid of them. I want the cadre to see them.”

Salazar stomped away.

“Well, she’s gone off a bit narky …” the group’s British exchange student/navigator, Dougie Henderson, quipped.

“‘Narky?’” Joey Souza asked.

“‘Fucking pissed’ for us ignrant ‘Muricans,” Sabrina explained.

“Sabrina, that’s not fair to Dougie!” Franco Cardoza laughed. “You know he doesn’t think that way about us demented colonists!”

“You folk are a bit daft,” Henderson added.

“He’s right in that regard, that’s for sure,” Sabrina admitted.

A cadre member, Major Sanderson, approached the table and looked at Sabrina. Salazar and another cadre member were visible through the door, standing in the hall.

“Knox? Come with me.”

Sabrina stood.

“Respectfully, Sir, if this has to do with Johanna Salazar and her attitude, I’d rather have the meeting out here, in the open. She’s the issue. None of the rest of us have a problem with any of our classmates or staff except her.” Sabrina stared at Salazar through the door’s window. “And she feels everyone is beneath her.”

“And I asked you to come with me, Knox. I know you know what a ‘request’ from a senior officer means, right?”

“I do, Sir,” Sabrina answered after locking up at attention. “After you, Sir.”

She grabbed the team’s assignment sheets from the table after Major Sanderson turned toward the door. Once in a small conference room with Major Sanderson, Major Tomarek, and The Devil Herself, Sabrina remained at attention until ordered to sit. Even then, she sat at attention.

“Ms. Salazar,” Major Tomarek started, “you’re the one who asked for this meeting. Please go ahead.”

“Knox was disrespectful, argumentative, and out of line from the start this morning. She refused to perform her duties as assigned and then threatened me with violence.”

“‘Duties as assigned,’ Ms. Salazar?” Major Sanderson asked. “Are those duties listed on the papers Captain Knox-Jones has in her hand?” Sabrina rose slightly, placed the papers in front of the majors, and then sat back at attention. Major Tomarek picked up one ‘assignment list.’

“Interesting. Which cadre member did you get these from, Ms. Salazar?” he asked.

The silence dragged.

“And the ‘violence’ you referred to?” The silence remained. Major Tomarek turned to Sabrina. “Captain?”

“I told Ms. Salazar that I was a second-degree black belt, Sir, and that if she started something I would end it.”

“Everyone has the right to self-defense, even the captain, Ms. Salazar,” Major Sanderson added. “As someone who studies the martial arts, Captain Knox-Jones knows about a proportional response as well.”

Sabrina fought to keep the blank look on her face and not glare over at Salazar or give her an evil grin.

“Now hear this loud and clear, ladies,” Major Tomarek said, catching their attention. “Neither of you run this place. This school belongs to the United States Air Force. The 412th Test Wing. I don’t care how many degrees you have, Ms. Salazar, and I don’t care how many flight hours you have in your logbook, Captain Knox-Jones. You have both been assigned to this course, and you can be unassigned just as easily. Do I make myself clear?”

“YES, SIR!” Sabrina barked after popping to attention. Johanna Salazar grumbled her response.

“We’re done here, then.” Salazar spun on her heel and left the room. Sabrina remained where she was, having caught Major Tomarek’s signal to stand fast. Major Sanderson closed the door.

“Have a seat, Sabrina,” Major Tomarek said in a quieter voice while motioning her back to her chair. Sabrina sat and looked at the majors expectantly. “Sabrina, you understand why I had to do things this way, I hope?”

“I do, Sir. I was on the verge of crossing the line with Major Sanderson when he came to get me, and what I said to Salazar could be interpreted as a threat.

Tomarek looked at Sanderson, who shook his head.

“You wanted to air your grievances in public, Sabrina, and I understood that,” Major Sanderson said. “Salazar’s attitude has been an open secret here since your class started. We were close to acting ourselves, but the possibility of her filing a sexual harassment suit against the school slowed us a bit.”

“She’s not exactly a team player, Sir.”

“Not just your opinion, Sabrina,” Major Tomarek added. “There have been others like her in previous classes, and the curriculum straightened them out. She’s held on to the attitude longer than any of the others did, however.”

“What are my orders, Sir?”

“Straight and level, Sabrina,” Tomarek said with a smile. “Ignore her when you can. She’s your group’s flight engineer, so you’ll have to deal with her for the moment, but only for studying your aircraft. How’s your ankle, by the way?”

“About ninety percent, Sir … thank you for asking. I’m not ready for a shift on the power play team yet, but I’m getting there. Office work won’t be an issue.”

“Boston? I can hear it in your voice.”

“Outside 128, Sir. Out in the wilderness of Massachusetts, if you listen to Bostonians. I played hockey all the way through school, including club hockey at the academy.”

“Get back to work, Knox, and try not to break any more aircraft, would ya?”

“I was in the back seat, Sir. You’ll have to speak to Major Seaver about that.”

“Get lost, Captain …”

Sabrina saluted the majors and got lost.

“You okay, Sabrina?” Tommy asked later that night. “You rarely spend that long doing katas.”

“More BS with Salazar today, Tommy. I wanted to work stuff out of my system.” Sabrina dropped heavily onto the couch next to Tommy. “She tried to hand out work assignments to the rest of the team this morning.”

“I’m guessing cadre placed you in her team this morning?” By now, Tommy was used to the schedule in TPS.

“They teamed us together with three other folks, Tommy. It ain’t her team.”

“And I know you don’t think of it as ‘yours,’ either, unless you mean the inclusive ‘yours.’”

“‘There is no “I” in team.’”

“But there are two in ‘imbecile…’”

“Now, don’t respect the lady. She is very smaht!”

“Apparently not,” Tommy snorted. “Seriously, babe, is this gonna come back to bite you?”

“It shouldn’t,” Sabrina said with a shrug. “Why? Are you going to show them where I like to be bitten if it does?”

Batting your eyes is required when asking this type of question.

“Um, no! Your husband reserved them for his exclusive use!”

Sabrina draped herself over her husband.

“I can think of other husband-reserved activities I’d enjoy tonight.”

“Then what are we doing sitting on the couch, darling?”

Tommy carried his wife into the bedroom.

Sabrina browsed through the website of the Los Angeles Times as she waited for folks to come back to TPS from lunch.

An article on last week’s fatal F-35 accident over the Sea of Japan caught her attention. The 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron F-35 faltered while trying to land at Kadena Air Base and crashed into the water west of the field. The wingman watched the doomed jet’s pilot eject but, after he’d circled around, he couldn’t locate the other pilot.

The 31st Rescue Squadron found the pilot in the ocean thirty minutes later, floating face-up and in the automatic-deploying life vest. The PJ who jumped in to retrieve the officer found her dead, and ‘face-up’ was a relative term.

The relatively shallow water off the coast from the base allowed quick recovery of the plane and ejection seat. Examination of the seat showed a catastrophic failure of both the ejection propellant canister and parachute deployment unit. The canister burst during ejection and destroyed the parachute. The pilot hit the water at flight speed from an altitude of three hundred feet, which crushed her chest.

It would have been an exquisitely painful way to die, if she hadn’t already lost her head. Literally.

If the method of the pilot’s death wasn’t bad enough, Sabrina knew the pilot personally. The pilot was Alejandra de la Cruz, the USAFA Cadet First Class who protected Sabrina from the unwanted advances of another cadet, the infamous Devin Fairhaven, over a decade ago.

This was the second service-related death of an Air Force officer Sabrina knew, the first being Arne ‘Thor’ Thorvoldson. Firsties didn’t interact with four-digs regularly, other than to boss them around. Sabrina wasn’t familiar with de la Cruz, personally, other than what the newspaper website had printed. Still, the loss hurt in a way she didn’t fully understand.

What the article didn’t explain was the reason for the propellant canister failure. Failures during wartime were possible because of combat damage to the aircraft. Failures during peacetime were extremely unlikely, though not impossible. The investigation into the incident would be extensive.

Franco Cardoza noticed Sabrina’s look when he walked up.

“Are you okay, Sabrina?”

“Hey, Franco,” she greeted her teammate. “That F-35 crash in Japan last week? I knew the pilot.” Sabrina stared at the wall. “She was a few years ahead of me at the academy and helped me out with a problem.” Sabrina looked back at Franco. “I didn’t really know her that well, but this feels like a personal loss.”

“As much as your friend from Germany? Don’t look at me like that, Sabrina! Joey, me, and the rest of us ‘techs’ have worked with enough of you jet jockeys. We look up all the incoming class members before you get here! We know who we want to avoid and who we’ll enjoy working with before any of you report.”

“All of the incoming class members?”

“All of them, Sabrina,” Franco confirmed with a nod. “We knew what to expect.”

“So nice of you to warn us.”

“You found out soon enough. So? The pilot from Kadena?”

“No,” Sabrina admitted, “Alejandra’s loss isn’t as personal as Arne’s loss was, especially since I was his wingman that day. I hadn’t seen Alejandra since she graduated. Alejandra and I never served in the same unit either. It’s still too close, though,” she added as she looked back at Franco.

“She stood up for me at the academy, taught me a few things about leadership and how to treat coworkers. You and Joey are working with us on this project; it doesn’t matter what your role is because we couldn’t do the job without you. Dad taught me the same thing. I just didn’t recognize it.”

“What does your dad do?”

“When he’s not an obstacle race contestant on TV, he’s the vice president of an ambulance company. He worked on the road as a paramedic a few years for the same company before 9/11.”

“Did 9/11 push him off the ambulance?”

“No, a bad call did, back when my brothers and I were young. He re-enlisted in the Army because of 9/11, then went back to the ambulance company after he got out.”

“Longevity and loyalty are his trademarks, then? I can see that in you, that’s for sure.”

“Thanks, Franco.”

Franco did something with his phone.

“Is this your dad?”

Franco turned his phone so Sabrina could see the screen. Sabrina saw a picture of her father in a familiar obstacle running outfit diving for a rope over a water obstacle.

“That’s dear old Dad!”

“I doubt he’d like the ‘old’ tag. Most seniors don’t.”

“Shots fired!” Sabrina laughed. “‘Seniors!’ Nice one!” She took a deep breath. “Thanks for the laugh, Franco. That helped.”

“I’ve been in aviation long enough to see this happen more times than I want to count. With both military and civilian pilots, too. Cuddle up to Tommy tonight, Sabrina. I know he’ll understand.”

‘Thank F-ing Christ, only another week in a group with Salazar,’ Sabrina thought as she walked toward the TPS building three days later. ‘I’ll miss working with the others, though. They’re some first-class folks.’

Why she was here at TPS, an hour early, she couldn’t understand. Her morning exercise routines had flown by. Even her run was at top speed. Tommy was out the door for work at his normal time, and she had given him a newlywed-quality sendoff. The poor boy could barely walk to his car in a straight line. Sabrina was still madly in love with her former next-door neighbor. She shook her head clear of the morning’s memories. She could use the extra hour to refine her flight plan for the Mustang’s next test run.

The building’s back door was unlocked, despite the hour. Sabrina preferred entering through the back of the building because, unlike the front door, the back’s closing mechanism didn’t need replacing. She could do without the resounding <CRASH!> of the front door echoing down the hall behind her.

“You’re here a bit early, Knox.”

Sabrina stood from her desk, turned, and came to attention.

“Good morning, Sir.”

“At ease, Sabrina,” Major Tomarek said. He waved Sabrina back to her chair. “You’re usually here before most of your classmates, but I don’t think I’ve seen you here quite this early,” the major added as he dragged another chair over.

Sabrina shrugged. “Can’t really explain it, Sir. Everything just seemed to click into place this morning.”

“Are things back to normal in your group?”

“I guess that depends on the definition of ‘normal,’ Sir. Nothing’s really changed. Almost all of us work together just fine. I couldn’t do my job without them.” Major Tomarek noticed the ‘almost’ in Sabrina’s answer. “I’m just tweaking my plan for the Mustang’s next test flight. The others can look it over so we can make any necessary adjustments to the plan. The next flight’s in two days.”

The major looked at Sabrina for a moment. “’Almost?’”

“It’s up to her if she wants to work with us or not,” Sabrina said with a shrug. “The School has given us duties to perform, and we need to execute those tasks properly. The rest of us won’t wait for her, though.”

“And if the team engineer declines?”

“Then the team pilot and team navigator, who both have engineering degrees, will handle the other one’s task to the best of our abilities, Sir.”

“Fly straight and level, Captain,” Major Tomarek said as he stood. “Straight and level.”

“Wilco, Sir.”

Just as Major Tomarek left, the door creaked open, and in walked Johanna Salazar. Sabrina tensed slightly at the sight of her, but quickly smoothed out her expression.

“Morning, Knox,” Salazar greeted coolly, taking a seat at her desk without waiting for a response.

“Morning, Salazar,” Sabrina replied politely, though her guard was up.

Salazar glanced over at Sabrina’s flight plan on the desk. “Working on the Mustang test flight?” she asked casually.

“Yes, I am,” Sabrina confirmed, keeping her tone neutral.

“Mind if I look?” Salazar inquired, reaching for the papers.

Sabrina hesitated for a moment before sliding the plan over to Salazar. As the engineer studied it intently, Sabrina watched her. There was something different about Salazar today, a softness in her eyes that Sabrina hadn’t seen before.

After a moment, Salazar looked up and met Sabrina’s gaze. The engineer’s eyes were bright, almost too bright. Sabrina felt a prickling sensation at the back of her neck, a sense of unease settling in the pit of her stomach. There was something off about Salazar’s demeanor, as if she was trying too hard to appear casual.

“Looks good,” Salazar said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’ll make some notes and get them back to you by the end of the day.”

“Thank you,” Sabrina responded, her voice steady despite the turmoil within her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Salazar was hiding something, that behind those seemingly genuine eyes lay a deceit waiting to be uncovered.

As Salazar jotted down some suggestions on the flight plan, Sabrina discreetly reached for her phone on the desk. With practiced finesse, she looked over her phone and checked Salazar’s pupil dilation, a trick she picked up from her father.

Sabrina discreetly pointed her phone towards Salazar’s face as if she were checking a message, all the while keeping a close eye on the engineer’s reactions. Salazar continued to make notes on the flight plan, unaware of Sabrina’s scrutiny. As she analyzed the woman in font of her, Sabrina’s heart raced.

Sabrina’s observations confirmed her suspicions. Salazar’s pupils dilated more than usual for this level of lighting. This showed heightened stress or excitement. Sabrina also noticed a thin sheen of perspiration above Salazar’s upper lip and on her forehead. Unlike Sabrina, Salazar did not work out with any regularity.

Sabrina’s mind raced with possibilities. Why would Salazar be feeling this way about the flight plan? Unless ... unless she was nervous about being discovered. With a steely determination in her eyes, Sabrina made a mental note to cross-reference Salazar’s notes with the original plan later. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was more to this situation than met the eye. As Salazar handed back the flight plan with a smile, Sabrina returned it with a polite nod.

“Thank you, Johanna. I appreciate your input,” Sabrina said evenly, watching for any flicker of reaction in the engineer’s expression.

Salazar’s smile faltered for a split second before she masked it with a confident facade.

“Anytime, Sabrina. We’re all in this together.” Her answer almost sounded genuine. “I’ll be back before the morning briefing starts.”

As Salazar left the room with a casual wave, Sabrina let out a sigh of relief. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something deeper at play, something lurking beneath the surface of their interactions. Gathering her thoughts, Sabrina knew she had to inform the rest of the team about what she had discovered.

The team started trickling in for their morning briefing. Sabrina’s eyes met those of her colleagues, each one bringing their own unique skills and personalities to the table. Sabrina gestured for them to take a seat, her mind buzzing with the revelations she had uncovered about Salazar.

Sabrina relayed every detail of their interaction in quiet tones. She could see the realization dawning on her teammates’ faces. Dougie furrowed his brow in concern, Franco Cardoza’s eyes widened with understanding, and Joey Souza’s fingers tapped on his knees in anticipation.

“This changes everything,” Dougie spoke up first, breaking the heavy silence that had settled over them. “If Salazar is hiding something, and we’re sure she is, we need to be prepared for anything.”

“We already knew she was bent, Dougie,” Sabrina reminded him. “Now we know the excrement is about to hit the rotating cooling device.” She glanced around the room, making sure Salazar hadn’t returned. “We need to write the engineering part of the flight without her help and compare our plan with hers. I ain’t leaving the ground until I’m convinced I won’t have a controlled flight into terrain, thanks to her.” The others looked unhappy, to say the least.

“Poker faces, guys!” Sabrina snapped in a whisper. “If we give her the wrong look, she’ll know we’re on to her!”

Joey reacted first, tossing out his normal, painful jokes as he tried to lighten the mood. That worked, and the team traded their barbs in normal fashion before Salazar returned.

Sabrina tightened her seat’s harness around her as her aircraft cockpit closed.

“Time to see what this girl can do,” she muttered, though it wasn’t clear whether she meant the aircraft or herself.

Sabrina saluted the crew chief before she rolled the Mustang out from under its protective canopy. The bright, late-summer sun beat down, nearly blinding Sabrina despite both the Mustang’s gold-tinted canopy and her helmet’s dark visor.

The Mustang lined up on South Base’s Runway 7. Sabrina firewalled the throttle when she received clearance to launch. The Mustang tore down the tarmac. Sabrina was airborne halfway down the strip, with her gear raised and stowed. How she wanted to pull the jet into a vertical take-off, but the test flight plan didn’t even come close. Sabrina stuck to the plan, Salazar’s plan.

She held the other plan, the one she and her teammates made, in reserve.

Sabrina headed out over Rogers Dry Lake and stepped through the test flight plan. As she worked through the sequential tests, Sabrina saw the simple genius of the plan: she’d run out of fuel. If she hadn’t been looking for Salazar’s trap, she might have missed it. She kept a careful eye on her fuel status and eventually called it quits.

“Everything okay, Ma’am?” the crew chief asked.

“No issues with the aircraft itself, Sergeant. Just low on fuel. Flight plan was too long, and we haven’t reached the mid-air refueling part of the tests yet.”

“I’ll get a fuel truck over here right away, Ma’am.”

“Take your time, Sergeant. I have to talk things over with the folks coming up behind you.” Sergeant Harrison turned to see a small gaggle of people stalking their way. “You won’t wanna be around for this, Sarge,” Sabrina muttered. “Gonna be some bad language flyin’ around pretty soon.”

“Clearing the airspace, Ma’am,” Harrison replied. “Best of luck.” He got the hell out of Dodge while Sabrina waited for the horde.

“What the hell are you doing back on the ground, Knox?” Salazar bellowed once in range.

“You mean, ‘What the hell am I doing back on the ground in a controlled fashion,’ Salazar?” Johanna Salazar took a small step back at the vehemence of Sabrina’s reply. “Yeah. Thought so.” Sabrina turned to Major Tomarek and Major Sanderson. “There was no way to complete all the tasks for today without refueling. We haven’t tested the Mustang’s capabilities during mid-air refueling yet, so I had to land.” She handed the majors a printed copy of the test plan. “Despite the line at the bottom.”

DO NOT LAND UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES – LANDING INVALIDATES TEST RESULTS

The officers looked up after reading that line.

“Ejecting from the twin-seat Mustang doesn’t really count as a ‘landing,’ so I guess I could have gone that route…” Sabrina remarked while looking skyward and tapping her lip. “Nah. Been there, done that. I wouldn’t recommend that option.”

“Ms. Salazar?” Major Sanderson asked. “That line appears twice: once in the plan itself, and once in the email it was attached to.” No answer. “Nothing to add, Ms. Salazar?”

“I think we need to take this off the flight line,” Major Tomarek said. “Captain, are you going back up after you get fuel?”

“That’s the plan, Sir,” Sabrina answered. “We have to finish these tests to keep on track.”

“Carry on, Captain.”

“Roger, Sir. Joey, can you give me a hand with this?” Joey Souza walked over to Sabrina. They went over a revised plan to finish the test flight while ignoring Salazar.

“Salazar, come with us, please,” Major Sanderson said before he and Major Tomarek led the way off the flight line.

Johanna Salazar gave Sabrina and Joey a cold look before following the two officers.

“So, what’d they do with her?” Tommy asked while Sabrina finished her dinner.

“Dunno,” Sabrina mumbled around a mouthful of food, “other than that she gone! Honor violation, they said.”

“I’m not quite sure, but I think you sound happy about that.”

“You can be quite sure I am happy about that.”

“What kind of work load does this put on the rest of you?”

“We’ll be fine,” Sabrina said with a shrug. “They assigned Joe Gilbert, one of the staff engineers, to help us for now. Dougie and I will get some side training from him, too.”

“So, you’re in a good mood tonight?”

“‘Good,’ or ‘playful?’”

“The first is good.” Tommy nuzzled her ear. “The second’s better!”

Sabrina took her feet off the brakes and pushed the throttle as far forward as she could. The Mustang leapt off its starting point like an Olympic sprinter. Sabrina watched as the plane’s ground speed approached rotational speed. The landing gear folded itself into its storage space and the covers closed. The Mustang shot down the runway, flying only feet over the tarmac. Flight speed climbed past rotation, and Sabrina pulled sharply back on the yoke.

The Mustang jumped from horizontal to vertical with mist streaming from the wings. The plane’s altitude climbed rapidly, while its speed increased slower. The Mustang screamed as its engines pushed the fighter into the clear, blue sky. Its altitude approached four thousand feet above the lake bed when the sound Sabrina had waited for surrounded her.

<BOOM!>

“Mach one,” she announced over the radio as the fighter’s speed continued to climb with its altitude. Sabrina lowered the nose to forty-five degrees. “Mach two,” came minutes later. The chase airplane didn’t struggle keeping up.

Sabrina pulled the Mustang into a tight turn, then pulled the stick the opposite way. The Mustang carved a series of ‘S’ turns through the sky before blasting across the lake bed. She flipped the plane around one hundred-eighty degrees and tore back toward Edwards.

“Birk Tower, Ghostrider requesting a flyby.”

“Negative, Ghostrider,” Tower responded. “No Navy pukes allowed here.”

“Oh? How about for ‘Mustang Sally?’”

Laughter over the radio.

“Ride, Sally. Ride. The pattern is clear.”

“Raikou, hot from the east, flight of two, passing south of the tower.”

“Roger, Raikou. Show us whatcha got!”

Sabrina lined the Mustang up from the east and pointed just south of Birk and firewalled the throttle. The Mustang streaked over the lake floor at greater than Mach two-and-a-half. The trailing EF-18 followed closely. The two planes tore over South Base at seven hundred fifty feet and punched into the desert west of Runway 7 and the X-1 Loading Pit. They pulled into a climb south of the field and circled around to do a paired landing on Runway 25.

“If I didn’t know better, Captain, I’d say you like this job!” Major Tomarek said when Sabrina climbed out of her parked aircraft.

“More than just a little, Sir!” Sabrina said with a smile.

“She ready?” the major asked while nodding at the test plane.

“Just about there, Sir! The YF-51 will lose the ‘Y’ pretty soon.”

“As long as you’re still around. We have more work for you.”